Saturday, September 18, 2010

Giants Must Handle Brewers, Cubs

The Giants and Padres are dead-locked right now in a tie for first place in the NL West, although the Giants do have a slight advantage in their winning percentage. With only 2 weeks left, every game from here on out is huge, and the Giants must take advantage of their light schedule over the next week.

First off, they need to take care of business vs. the Brewers, who they where shut out by on Friday night. Randy Wolfe threw a complete game, 3-hitter, and the Giants lost brief hold atop the NL West. The Giants must right the ship on Saturday evening, and they have the right man taking the hill in the red hot Tim Lincecum. The Brewers are 10 games below .500, and the Giants are fighting for their playoff hopes, and because they were unable to come up with any runs and just 3 hits on Friday night, it's got to be a little bit discouraging for the team as a whole. The Brewers aren't a very good team, and the Giants had been on fire coming into the series, so hopefully Friday night's loss was the lone hiccup and these last 2 games. It's very important the Giants start taking advantage of these teams that they're better than, because they have another 3-game set with the same type of team coming up next. After the Brewers series, the Giants head to Chicago to face the 68-81 Cubs. If the Giants were truly playing with a sense of urgency, and are determined to be playing baseball well into October, they really should go 5-0 over their next 5 games, or at the very least, 4-1.

In order to do that, the Giants are going to need just a little more consistency out of their offense. Once again, they showed their roller-coaster offense over the last 2 nights, putting up a 10 spot with 8 extra-base hits (3 homers) on Thursday night against Ted Lilly, only to be absolutely shut down by Randy Wolf, who pitching style is identical to Lilly's. Over the last 2 games, Bruce Bochy has also slotted in a new leadoff hitter, as the never-ending search to replace Andres Torres' bat continues. Edgar Renteria has been the latest trial, and he answered the bell big time Thursday with a 4-hit night, but then went 0-4 in the same spot Friday. Without Torres, the Giants have no real leadoff hitter, and don't even really have anybody that somewhat resembles a leadoff guy. Renteria is probably the closest thing to that on the roster, but he's not really an everyday guy right now, as he splits time with Juan Uribe. Freddy Sanchez might be an option, but he's really solidified the 2-spot and the Giants do need to keep some sort of cohesion going in the lineup. That leaves the man I mentioned in last post, Cody Ross, still as the best candidate by default. He's got a little patience, got some speed, got some pop and wouldn't disrupt the lineup by shuffling a bunch of hitters. When Renteria plays, Boch should lead him off, but when he doesn't, my pick is Ross. If the Giants can't get some kind of consistant production from that spot though, I have a hard time seeing the earning a playoff spot.

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